


Sensory Prompts

by reogulus



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Episode s02e09: DC, Missing Scene, Multi, One Shot Collection, Post-Season/Series 01, Post-Season/Series 02, Pre-Canon, Wordcount: 500-1.000
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:16:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24490426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reogulus/pseuds/reogulus
Summary: A collection of one-shots written for prompts I received on Tumblr. Each one-shot is written based on one character or ship and onesensory prompt.
Relationships: Eduard Asgarov/Roman "Romulus" Roy, Gerri Kellman & Frank Vernon, Kendall Roy/Siobhan "Shiv" Roy, Stewy Hosseini & Greg Hirsch, Stewy Hosseini & Jess Jordan, Stewy Hosseini/Kendall Roy
Comments: 17
Kudos: 37





	1. Roman - 39. an unpleasantly damp handshake

“I’m gonna go uh, get some air,” Roman pushes the chair back and stands up. He feels dizzy for a moment, head swimming and almost unstable on his feet. He takes the first step away from the table—the aftermath of the wining and dining, the extreme emotional yo-yo going from hostages to honored guests, the pitch that has long since strayed from the talking points he practiced in front of his bathroom mirror in New York barely 72 hours ago. Throw them all in and blend into the fucking vertigo of being alive.

He makes his way to the terrace, the night air feels crisp in his lungs and sobering in his livers. There is a lone silhouette standing near the railing, smoking a Juul—Roman doesn’t need to look twice to know it’s Eduard.

“Hey man,” Roman’s voice comes out quieter, lower, than he has expected.

“Rome,” Eduard turns to him with a small smile. He’s streaming something on his phone, which he hands to Roman and says, “our team is killing it.”

“Huh, yeah, fucking A,” the word _team_ doestrigger the memory of his impromptu speech in front of the soccer players. He manages to suppress it before the white-hot embarrassment hits replay.

They stand there, watching the stream for a few minutes. The sounds of the commentators and the crowd are alien to Roman’s ears, both because he doesn’t watch soccer or most any sports, and because fate has just landed him on the right side of life-or-death by a rather thin margin. The Hibs—Hearts, are leading by a mile. The star players Eduard borrowed from the football club czars, or whoever the fuck, are apparently earning their keep. It’ll be good business come time to flip the team, like Eduard said in Dundee. With the way things are going—both he and Eduard may need the money very soon. On that, Roman rubs his hands together, as if to rub the thought away from his mind. His palms are not as dry as he’d hope.

“You okay, man?” Eduard shuts off the stream, eventually, and puts the phone away.

“Uh-huh,” Roman nods, shoves his hands back into his pockets. Eduard seems as tired if not more than Roman is—understandable, because Roman will get picked up by the embassy in less than an hour, and for Eduard, everything has probably just begun, and Roman certainly doesn’t want to know more about the whole iceberg beneath the surface of the sea of blood. If all goes well, they may actually see each other again, maybe.

Roman is not good at goodbyes, like _goodbye-_ goodbyes, so he doesn’t like them, or maybe it’s the other way around. He’s never bothered figuring that one out.

“I’ll see you again, right? In, like, Scotland, America, or whatever. When it’s safe again,” Eduard swallows, “which will be very soon, I’m sure.”

“Oh yeah, sure, I mean this is not goodbye-goodbye,” Roman rolls his eyes as he says the word, throws up some jazz hands to drive the point home, “it can’t be. It’s not possible.”

Eduard smiles. Really smiles, this time, like all the times Roman has made him laugh, not the fakey survival-oriented bullshit that’s been his default face since the first assault rifle made an appearance. “Shake on it?”

“You bet.”

Roman grabs his outstretched hand. Neither of them goes for a firm grip this time, the damp of their palms adds to the hesitation. It’s not a nice feeling, this—but Roman can’t quite seem to let it go, either. He waits until Eduard pulls away first.

“Safe travels home,” Eduard walks away, waves a bit, “get a good shower.”

Roman smiles and waves back. He knows he smells terrible, all of his pockets having been turned inside out, the travel-sized body spray and deodorant tossed away long ago. So it’s good that they didn’t end this on a hug. It’s better, Roman has decided, to have his nostrils retain any last memories of Eduard with a hint of cotton candy floss. Yes, it is best to go with that.


	2. Shiv/Kendall - 6. the squeak of an old wooden staircase

Shiv bites her lip and pushes. The white-framed door opens with a high-pitched whine that sounds like a question. It’s not locked, and that’s the first surprise; she doesn’t know what she should have expected.

She steps on through, the door closes behind her. Inside, all the lights are on, and she is apparently alone on the first floor. The house smells freshly cleaned, restored to a pristine state with white sheets draped over the remaining pieces of furniture. Some part of her wishes they could have gotten a proper tour back when they were in Dundee for the gala, when there were people living here.

“Kendall?” Shiv calls out, not before clearing her throat. She hasn’t said his name properly in weeks, not since the day he blew everything wide open. She’s found it easier to stomach the various other short-hands—Ken, my brother, dead man walking, bastard traitor, selfish cunt.

She slips out of her pumps, walks over to the foot of the stairs. He keeps her waiting for about a minute—a minute too long. And then she hears him before she sees him, through the faint squeaks of the old wooden steps that come with the territory for a pre-war house.

“The fuck is this, some Haunting of Hill House shit?” Shiv says, craning her neck to see his feet emerge from the shadows of upstairs, then his thighs, torso, and finally his five o’clock shadow and the glazed-over look in his eyes.

Kendall shrug and says, “Yeah, you look like a ghost too.” He doesn’t descend all the way to meet her, stops midway to sit down on a flight of stairs. He sets a hand down on the space next to him, gives her a look of invitation. Shiv rolls her eyes, keeps her arms crossed in front of her chest until she takes that first step to meet him halfway.

She smooths her hands down the back of her trousers and sits down next to him. The wooden plank creaks, again, beneath the weight of them both. It is narrow enough for their knees to touch, which necessitates the drawing of a deep breath.

“Dad doesn’t know that you bought the place?”

“It wouldn’t be hard to trace the shell companies, if he thinks to look. But he doesn’t like the past too much, does he?”

“Bravo, well-played,” Shiv turns to look at him, her glance catching the slight curve of a half-smile on his lips. “No, he can’t even remember any of the houses he’s already bought. It’s nothing if it’s not the next thing.”

“Why did you come, Shiv?”

She raises her eyebrows. “You invited me.”

“By my calculations, the NDA’s have just about gone through the whole domino by now. Gerri puppeteered you though that textbook witness tempering sweettalk, and he’s probably shut you out again.”

Shiv takes her phone out of her purse without a beat. “I’ll tell him about this right now.”

“And he’d ask you that same question,” Kendall pulls out something metal and rectangular, too, a flask. He twists it open and takes a swig of whatever poison he chose for the day. She holds her tongue.

“You know, I want to donate this to his School of Journalism. They can make it into some sort of Logan Roy museum, with the antique furniture and all that,” he waves carelessly at the sheet-covered objects of ghoulish contours, “maybe even move dad’s plaque here.”

Shiv can’t quite hold back a snicker; she can’t help recognizing a brilliantly petty chess move when she sees one. “Uh-huh, so, eternal damnation through the songs they’ll write about him.”

“It’s good, right,” Kendall smiles at her, before raising the flask to his lips again. She pushes it away, too fast for him, always has been since they were children. He finally turns to look her in the eye.

“I just need to know—” Shiv pauses, waits for it to come out in her voice, the question that brings and keeps her here. “Why do you think you can trust me? After what I—” The yacht, the choice, the sacrifice. Tom. She still can’t say it.

Kendall smiles. Too brittle, too warm, like his smile the night before her wedding in the old boat, when he already knew what must be done come sunrise. He stands up. She feels the heat of his palm through the shoulder of her jacket, digging down too much to be a gentle pat. She hears him walking up the steps behind her, that same squeaking sound in her ear again.

“Come on up, sis. Let me give you a tour.”


	3. Stewy - 35. jumping into a cold pool

Technically, Stewy is still on vacation. Sandy has called a few times telling him to keep an eye on major investors and shareholders, the graphs and numbers will be in flux for some time as Wall Street piece together exactly what Kendall’s press conference means. It’s a migraine minefield if he thinks about it too much, and on top of that, Stewy may have drank too much the night before. He would have enjoyed at least two more days on the finest sand beaches of the Ionian Sea, if Kendall had just gone on being his dad’s lapdog bumboy. This isn’t a pleasant state of affairs, it’s a tough pill to swallow, but Stewy Hosseini is nothing if not a realist and he was coming to terms with that version of Kendall. He was working through the process; the fuck-you’s he’d thrown in Kendall’s face during Argestes and on the yacht in front of Logan were helping it along. Now the fucker has messed up the chessboard all over again, to make himself the center of attention.

Stewy gets out to the pool around noon, the sun high in the sky, blaring down. He made some random hangover remedy from Google earlier on a whim, the taste is awful and some of it remains on his tongue—Stewy will pretend it’s a sign of efficacy, if only because he doesn’t want to acknowledge the agitation rising in the pit of his stomach. It’s either that concoction or Kendall, and he’d rather not think about Kendall right now.

He takes off his sunglasses, pulls his shirt over his head, drops it aside. The pool looks inviting, all serene save for the occasional ripple brought by the gentle, humid wind. Its peace only reminds him of how quiet it is, without anyone near him.

So he jumps—the water is colder than expected, but the impact registers before his skin feels the shock of the drop in temperature. Stewy tries to hold his head underwater as long as he can, counting down the seconds in his mind. He gets to 17 when he hears the sounds—music that he should recognize. He pulls his head up, swims towards the edge. It’s his phone ringing again.

Stewy climbs out, doesn’t bother going for the towels, his feed warm against the tiles, wet sounds carried with each step. He picks up the phone; the caller display says Kendall.

“For fuck’s sake,” Stewy curses, running a hand through his hair to keep more water from dripping onto his face. He recalls, now, that Kendall is still one of the contacts set to override the do-not-disturb setting on his phone. He set it back when they were in England for Shiv’s wedding, for the 3-hour check-ins on the bear hug that never happened.

“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I,” he says upon picking up. His lawyers will have some choice words about this, if and when he remembers to tell them he accepted this call.

“Hello to you too,” Kendall replies. “We can say hi without getting lawyers involved, right?”

“Geez, Ken, what the fuck is this? You know what, no, the better question is what the fuck _are you_?” Against his best efforts, Stewy’s voice sounds raspy and uneven; he hates that but doesn’t care enough to try to stop it.

Kendall has gone quiet. Stewy puts the phone on speaker; the silence counts down the seconds between them. There is a time and place for power moves and bitter jabs, but for now he’s only thinking about re-applying sunscreen.

“I meant it, Stew, what I said at Argestes. How things turned out between us, it’s been the cause for some regret. On my part.”

Kendall trips over his words a bit and that’s how Stewy knows he’s been clean for the past twelve hours at least. The sharp-eyed quick-witted Kendall Roy immortalized in news reels and sound bites in the Capitol and the press room is the result of carefully calibrated dosage, straightened _just_ enough to dull his self-awareness but not so much to get shitfaced completely. They’ve done drugs together for over ten years, on and off, which probably adds up to a longer run than most marriages of their graduating class at Bentley.

“And I _still_ don’t trust you, Ken. _Jesus_. I don’t even care about the bear hug fuckery at this point, okay, I don’t,” Stewy hears his own voice getting louder and harsher. That would have been a perfectly acceptable cut-off point to end the call, but the words keep coming out of him. “Because at this point, I think you have a fucking Magic 8 ball that randomizes all your decisions with a broken picker, and I can’t play that game anymore.”

Kendall laughs, which is what he always does when he sees Stewy getting worked up about something that he doesn’t see the point of.

“The broken picker is not from a fucking Magic 8 ball, man. You and all the strippers in New York should know—it’s the daddy issues.”

In all honesty, Stewy laughs at that because he can’t help it, even though the war is not over and you are not supposed to find the enemy funny.

“I’m sorry for the irrevocable changes I caused in our friendship, Stewy.”

Fucking hell.

“Don’t you fucking twelve-step me now.”

“It’s not the twelve-step program. I’m not at a facility…not trying to get sober, ha. But I don’t know what my dad will say about me in the coming days so, before it’s confessed on my behalf, I think I should, as much as people are willing, let them hear it from me.”

With a quick tap, Stewy takes the call off speaker. “Then tell me what the irrevocable changes entail, please. It sounds like you wrote down notes.”

“Okay, fair enough, I did. I’m sorry for backing out of the bear hug deal. I’m sorry for continuing to fuck you after I got married, and I’m sorry for stopping it when I realized even the guilt of cheating on Rava and hiding my drug addiction from her couldn’t get me to be a good husband to her anymore.”

“I really didn’t need to hear that, Ken. You called the wrong person.” Just in case Logan Roy has been recording the call for blackmail, at least he’s saying this as calmly as possible. Then he hangs up before Kendall can say anything else.


	4. Jess - 20. people talking a room away

When Jess gets back up to Vaulter’s floor from seven, things are almost back on the quiet side. Security seems to have escorted off premises anyone who caused a commotion after Kendall made the announcement.

She makes her way up the stairs, turns the corner towards the meeting room where Kendall is set up, security guards stationed outside the glass walls. He’s still working at the desk, eyes glued to the numbers on-screen, surrounded by dusty old binders laid out on the table.

Jess doesn’t knock when she enters, her heels are soundless against the carpeted floor. She finds a clearing near Kendall’s elbow and sets down the coffee cup. He looks up at her, smiles briefly, and mutters a thanks. Only then does she notice the dampness on his face, particularly around his chin.

“You okay?” She asks, in case she’d missed something of concern.

“I—oh,” Kendall follows her gaze and touches his chin lightly, a quick dab with two fingers, before shaking his head. “It’s fine. I had to go wash my face, someone spat on me. An employee—” He pauses for a beat, tilts his head slightly, “ex-employee.”

She nods, straightens her back a bit. “Okay. Everything is running smoothly on seven, they just wrapped up the latest round of testing and the interns will get us weekly reports for the time being.”

“Good,” Kendall says, in that tone that really sells how much he believes it, like how he’d talked down the Vaulter employees from unionizing. Jess believes it; Jess knows if she does her job well, she never needs convincing. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Good night,” she nods and Kendall nods back. “Great work this week,” he says as she passes between the guards at the door. She waves without turning around.

It’s Jess’s habit to take the stairs down as extra cardio after a day of sitting-down work, when there aren’t too many floors to go down. She reaches the door to the stairwell but pauses before pushing it open. There are faint sounds of someone talking inbetween what sounds like barely suppressed sobbing, maybe a woman, coming from behind the door.

Jess takes two steps back, quietly. She can still hear the woman—who doesn’t seem to have realized another person’s approaching presence. From where she stands, Jess can make out most of the keywords. _Rent, benefits, terminated, bills, benefits—_

She takes a deep breath. Steps forward again, pushes the door open in one fell swoop.

The woman—in a striped sweater and leggings and running shoes—is standing in the corner, says a few more words into her phone before she registers Jess’s entrance. Jess does the courtesy of letting the door fall close behind her with a dulled, quieted sound, as the woman whispers something of a hushed, hurried goodbye before hanging up.

In that moment, Jess could have kept walking, maybe she should have. It’s too obvious—her black skirt suit, her shoes, the pearls around her neck. Nothing else says us-against-them quite as silently and plainly as dress. Words pale in the wake of what happened barely two hours ago, on the other side of this door.

Jess looks at the woman, taking in her outfit again—this time including the makeup pigments melting off her face—as the woman takes in hers. There’s no way to know her name as her badge was already taken. Without a word, Jess opens her purse, pulls out a piece of tissue from her Kleenex to-go packet. She walks towards her, gets close enough only so the woman can take it from her hand if she wishes.

“Fuck you and fuck whoever pays your bills,” she comes forward from the corner where she’d been leaning, rips the tissue out of Jess’s hand, spits in it, balls it up to throw at Jess’s feet before dashing down the stairs. It doesn’t take long for her to disappear from Jess’s sight, and the sounds of her frantic footsteps soon grow faint.

Jess toes the balled-up tissue paper gently with the tip of her heel, pushes it towards where the woman was standing. She takes care to line it up neatly against the corner before taking her first step to descend the stairs.


	5. Greg & Stewy -  74. gum with all the flavor chewed out of it

Stewy hasn’t expected Greg to actually answer the door after he knocked. The kid has enough sense to leave the chain lock on, at least.

“Hi,” Greg sounds nervous, but his eyes are bright and alert. Stewy leans back on his heels.

“The tabloids spotted Kendall around here yesterday, or so it seems.”

“Um, well, he has a few real estate properties around New York, this is one of them,” Greg seems to be fumbling in his back pocket for his phone. “He’s not here, though.”

Stewy rolls his eyes. Yes, as if he, of all people, doesn’t know that Kendall Roy has more than a few houses in New York.

“Yeah I’ll wait for him to come by,” Stewy nods at the chain lock, stretched straight and taut. “Are you gonna let me in? Feel free to call him, by the way, I would have offered to call from my phone but he’s been dodging me, as you might have guessed.”

“Right, uh, one sec,” with his phone in hand, Greg turns away from the door. Stewy checks his watch. Some indistinct mumbling later, Greg comes back and undoes the chain.

“He said you can come in, he has nothing to hide,” Greg bows a bit as he opens the door for Stewy to walk through, then closes it carefully behind him, checking both sides of the hallway as if anyone who hasn’t seen Stewy waiting there for five minutes would have seen him in those brief seconds of the door opening.

“Oh, right, ‘we have nothing to hide’,” Stewy chuckles, parroting the line Kendall said during the Senate hearing in a high-pitched voice. “You guys have quite the war room set up, huh?”

Greg rushes a few steps ahead of Stewy, covers up the loose papers strewn across the dining table. No matter—the takeout containers shoved in the kitchen bin and the five different monitor screens set up in the living room tell enough of a story.

“I saw your testimony in front of the Senate, you did good,” Stewy pulls out a chair, plops himself down, draws up his ankle to balance on his knee.

“I…yeah, thanks, I guess. I had some prep,” Greg’s hair seems extremely unwashed, his shirt unbuttoned enough to show the white undershirt. He seems to be trying really hard to remember where he’s putting each piece of paper that he’s trying to hide from Stewy’s view, and is already failing at that.

“So, why Kendall? Just because he’s your favorite cousin?”

“He—he’s always been nice to me, he let me live here when I couldn’t afford to pay even half of the market rent,” Greg pauses his busywork for a second, for which Stewy is thankful—the flurry of movements from those gangly limbs were going to give him motion sickness. “He—uh—well, can I offer you anything? To drink?”

Stewy turns to survey the liquor cabinet, makes a face to himself while shaking his head slightly, and then turns back to Greg. “No, I’m good, drinks-wise. Do you have gum?”

“I think so,” Greg furrows his eyebrows a bit as if in thought, then dashes across the room to find his—bag? It seems like a messenger-backpack hybrid that Stewy finds painful to even look at. He digs through a side pocket and pulls out a pack of something yellow to toss at Stewy, who catches it easily.

“Juicy Fruit? You only have fucking _Juicy Fruit_?” Stewy can’t believe his eyes. He flips over the packaging and sees the image of a poorly rendered slice of watermelon. “Dude, why even bother? You might as well give me the goo with all the flavor chewed out.”

“Sorry, uh, shit, hold on,” Greg seems to get sweatier by the second. He’s back to fumbling with his phone, which is pinging no doubt with more messages from Kendall or their lawyers. It’s almost cute in that painfully adolescent way that Stewy used to see in Kendall when they were in their twenties, except right now Stewy just wants gum and he still doesn’t have any.

“I can see if I can get some breath strips, maybe a Smint—”

Stewy holds up a finger. “Just shut up and don’t talk to me again unless and until you’re ready to tell me Kendall’s ETA, please,” he says before turning the other way in his chair, and shifts his legs so his other ankle is crossed on his other thigh.

Fucking _Juicy Fruit_. He pops one out, and the sickening artificial sweetness explodes on his tongue on the first bite.


	6. Kendall/Stewy - 56. Poking at a bruise

Kendall wakes up in his dorm bed, to the touch of Stewy’s fingers on his skin. He manages to keep his eyes closed for a minute still, but daylight insists on seeping through the thin curtains. He feels its warmth in the golden red sheen behind his eyelids.

“Stewy,” his voice croaks a bit from dehydration. “Go back to your bed? I’m gonna sleep in.”

“Mm-hmm,” Stewy gives him a non-answer. He keeps his hand on Kendall, fingers tracing down the length of his arm, until they stop at Kendall’s hip, at which point Kendall remembers suddenly that he is butt naked under the covers. Debauched memories of the night before come rushing back to him now, and so Kendall turns over again to face Stewy, looks at him as sternly as he can manage before the heat fully rises to his cheeks.

“Dude, I’m serious, get out—”

He’s interrupted by the movement of Stewy’s fingertips—with the slight sting of untrimmed fingernails—pressing into his side, slightly toward the small of his back, and the poke sends a jolt of pain up to Kendall’s brain. A gasp escapes from his lips and his body writhes slightly under Stewy’s touch before he can stop it.

“Was that a gasp or a moan, Ken? It doesn’t sound like you want me to go.”

Kendall looks down at himself, where Stewy’s fingers were, a thumb-sized bruise turning bluish yellow on his hip. He’s starting to feel flushed for real, his mind filling with hazy memories of being held down on his desk and then his bed, Stewy ramming into him hard enough that he almost couldn’t catch his breath. He bites down on his lip and falls silent, acutely aware of the many other parts of his body that are still recovering from what happened last night—what he asked, begged Stewy to do to him.

Kendall shakes his head. He won’t let Stewy have the satisfaction now. “And how many times have you kicked _me_ out of your bed, douchebag?”

“That’s only because I had shit to do,” Stewy’s other hand cards through his sweat-dampened hair, strangely tender, from scalp to pillow. “I’ve got nothing but time today.” The fingers that poked him are no longer there, Stewy has shifted his hand when Kendall isn’t looking. He’s covering the bruise with his thumb now, but the touch is gentle; his palm feels warm against Kendall’s hip.

Kendall sighs, leans forward so his nose is buried the nape of Stewy’s neck. He can’t tell where his own scent ends and Stewy’s begins. “Fine, so stay.”

In response, Stewy squeezes him, rougher than what Kendall can remember him ever being in bed—it hurts, and it almost has the same quiet meanness as a pinch except he’s grabbing the hipbone too, not just the skin and tissue. Kendall hears the raspy moan from his own mouth, followed by a soft knowing chuckle from Stewy coming from above his ear.

The truth is, Stewy doesn’t like to be rough in sex, for the same reason he doesn’t like to raise his voice; there’s no rational reason for exerting extra effort if the same results can be achieved in his usual way. But Kendall knows the part inside him that lights up, too needy and shameless, when Stewy touches him like he wants Kendall to remember it for a while, like he wants to leave a mark.

“Please stay,” Kendall whispers, keeps his voice between them even though there is no one else around, “for me.”

He will take whatever Stewy gives him, he can’t help his hunger for it, he knows that since the first time they fucked. There is no one else who understands—who stays, because and in spite of that understanding, without getting into it all.

“Okay,” Stewy pats his hair again; he answers in a whisper, too. “Only because you asked so kindly.” The hand he’s kept on Kendall’s hip travels down to Kendall’s inner thigh, where Kendall already feels the soreness of muscle. He waits for Stewy’s fingers, ever so nimble, to map out more marks on the pale tender flesh.

He waits, pines, quivers for the pressure to double down where he is the rawest. At last, he closes his eyes, arches himself up to meet Stewy’s touch.


	7. Jess & Stewy - 60. getting scratched by briars

“Jess,” a familiar voice calls out from behind her. Jess recognizes it without turning around. She stops in her tracks.

“Stewy,” the way she smiles to greet him is her equivalent of getting armed to the teeth. As if to brace for impact, Jess shift to hold out the package in front of her, it is intended as a subtle signal for him to not get close. Not that Stewy gets it; he steps right to her side, close enough to get into her airspace. 

Jess flinches almost on reflex as soon as she catches a whiff of his cologne. She turns slightly towards the trailside bushes slightly to gain more distance away from Stewy, and the back of her fingers brush too close against a briar patch. Immediately, Jess feels the sharpness of the scratch, but she keeps her pace and her smile even and measured as she moves her hand away from the rough edges of the plants.

“Where’s Kendall?”

“I haven’t heard from him since last night,” Jess responds, looking up to meet Stewy’s dark eyes. She sees something unfamiliar in them. He seems genuinely worried and scared—too human, too unpolished. She starts walking again, keeps looking straight ahead.

“What is this?” Stewy points to the gift-wrapped box in her arms, he frowns as if he is entitled to know.

“Kendall texted me after dinner last night that he wants me to pick something up for Iverson, to make up for,” Jess trails off—Stewy was there and saw the startled look of hurt on the kid’s face when he ran from his dad, “so I’m just going over to drop it off at Rava’s car.”

“Right,” Stewy sounds entirely uninterested. The nonchalant tone is much more like him and, strangely, it puts Jess a bit more at ease. “Did he tell you to drop it off before they leave? Is that the last thing you heard from him?”

“No, he didn’t have to tell me word-for-word,” Jess takes a beat, long enough to ensure it is registered. “The last thing I heard from him is to buy something for Iver that will cheer him up a little.”

Stewy tosses his head back a little with a quiet mock-chuckle; there’s that flashy condescension with a bite of meanness which Jess has come to know well enough. “You know I’m asking as his friend, right? Like, I know there’s a non-zero chance that he might have OD’d and died somewhere between now and breakfast, and I’m actually fucking worried. Come on. You can’t give me _anything_?”

Jess turns to look at Stewy. She clears her throat, measuring her words as best as she can manage. “The last time people saw him was at breakfast, and then Colin came to get him. I don’t know where he is and his phone is turned off.”

“Colin? As in, Logan’s guy? _Fuck_ ,” there is a flash of non-trivial terror across Stewy’s face, but he keeps it together with the bravado of a man who cannot reckon with the possibility of failure, not when he’s come so close.

“I’m sorry,” Jess says quietly. “He…he probably has his reasons. I don’t always get the benefit of knowing them.”

Stewy goes quiet for a moment, but he keeps pace with Jess, much to her unease. Eventually, he breaks the silence: “Listen, can I give you a lift back to New York? First class premium whatever you want—”

“Thank you for the kind offer, I think I’ll be fine,” Jess interrupts him in her softest, most polite voice. Her smile is pulled as tight is her top bun.

“You don’t trust me?” Stewy asks, indignant. For a guy who’s always so above everything so long as the bottom-line impact is manageable, he seems unusually concerned with the opinion of someone of her position.

Jess doesn’t respond. She’s kept her silence through much worse unknowns, for Kendall’s sake—Stewy has no idea, though he may well think he does.

“I really gotta go now,” Before she makes a turn to the cars, Jess makes eye contact, so as to show Stewy clearly that her smile does not reach anywhere near her eyes. The way Stewy sets his jaw is the only receipt she needs; she gives him a final nod and speeds up her walk.


	8. Gerri & Frank - 36. a paper cut

“ _Fuck_ ,” Gerri curses, uncharacteristically loud. It’s enough to jolt Frank awake; he has been lying down on the couch in the corner of the meeting room. It’s not quite comfortable enough to sleep but the half hour of shut-eye is at least helping to fend off some exhaustion.

“Did I wake you?” Gerri looks over at Frank as he pushes aside the suit jacket that he’s draped on himself as a substitute blanket and sits up to stretch his arms. It’s 1am and they are probably the only people left in the building, the quietness somehow amplifies the tiredness in her apologetic tone. Frank notices she has tied her blonde curls up in a ponytail with a piece of red elastic band.

“What happened?” As soon as he asks, Frank sees the piece of tissue wrapped around Gerri’s index finger, which she holds in place with her other hand. “Oh no. Is it deep?”

“I’m fine,” she shakes her head, “if anything I’m definitely wide awake now. My blood didn’t get on the papers, thank god.”

Frank gets up from the couch and walks towards her. The culprit is splayed out on the table, looking innocently plain, just one of the many documents they’ve been tasked to review by morning. The final check-through at 7:30pm revealed a few numbers that didn’t add up, and thus began the search for a needle in a haystack.

“Joan probably has a first aid box in her desk, I’ll see if I can find a band-aid.”

“Thanks, Frank.”

It takes Frank a moment to register that this is one of the rare moments when Gerri accepts his help on first offer, without pushing back or negotiating so it works out more like a mutual exchange. Then he leaves the meeting room and walks down the hallway to the receptionist desk outside Logan’s office. The last time he had to come searching for the first-aid box was when a luncheon had gone very wrong and ended with a staff stuffing his face with a food item known to cause allergic reactions for him. So, this is at least better than that.

Frank found the spare key hidden on the underside of the table and opened the bottom drawer, then he took the box out. There’s gauze and bandages, but no band-aid in sight. He lets out a heavy sigh, makes a mental note to email the workplace health and safety staff committee in the morning about restocking the first-aid kits—come morning, of course, not at this hour.

Frank takes out a few pieces of gauze before putting the box back, grabs the clear tape dispenser on the desk as well before he leaves. This is not ideal and may not work at all, but as is with most everything that they have to do for Waystar at the expense of going to sleep, it’s the best he’s got to work with.

“So, bad news, there are no band-aids in the box,” Gerri looks up from whatever she’s reading when Frank comes back into the room, and Frank holds up the gauze and tape dispenser in response. “Good news, we can do a little crafting with this.”

Gerri smiles—still tired, but Frank notices a glint of actual amusement in her eyes. “Well, do your worst. Treat me like I’m a World War I soldier with gangrene.”

Frank chuckles slightly, but he stops as soon as Gerri unwraps the tissue around her finger. The blood hasn’t left just a few droplets, but it’s almost soaked through.

Without another word he pulls out a chair and sits down, pulls his seat closer to her so he can get to work. It’s good that he took enough gauze to wrap around her finger firmly; he’s careful not to cut off circulation as he puts everything in place. The tape seems to hold the cotton well enough.

“Well, that should hold,” he muses out loud.

Gerri nods, pushes her glasses slightly up her nose bridge. “I’ll let you know in the morning.”

“That _was_ deep, by the way.”

“Right, so,” Gerri rolls her eyes, “you’re gonna sue me for misrepresentation?”

Frank only smiles. “I know better than to pick fights I can’t win.”

“Thanks, Frank.” Gerri says again, this time lower and quieter. Frank smiles and whispers back a “no problem”. She and Karolina always know how to use their voices and their words to get the necessary buy-in from the executive floor.

“So,” Frank clears his throat with as much renewed vigor as he can muster and turns his chair back to face the table. “Where did we leave off? Let's get this over with so I can go give the health and safety committee a piece of my mind.”


End file.
